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Intersecting Fields

Pr Proximal Reading

a network-scaled approach to digital literature analysis

Christopher B. Menadue ORCID ID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4794-8280 Intersecting Fields Conference 01 November 2017 Townsville, JCU CASE

Near, Far, Wherever You Are…

The application of quantitative techniques to aid text analysis in the literary humanities From Burrow’s Conjectures into Criticism (1987) to Franco Moretti’s Graphs Maps and Trees (2005), and beyond…

near

close reading

the New Critics: I.A. Richards and followers Each of the New Critics emphasized his own set of concerns and priorities… even at the New Criticism’s height, the New Criticism was wrongly perceived as unified and consistent in its approaches (Gang, 2011)

far

distant reading

Franco Moretti, and followers Far from opening new perspectives, distant reading may actually blunt our critical faculties, inviting us to inadvertently adopt biased views of literature under the mask of objectivity. (Ascari, 2014)

Unlike most of his critics, Moretti is therefore aware that a theory cannot be falsified by empirical facts… Like any proper theory, Moretti’s is the strongest where it seems the weakest... (Habjan, 2012)

far out…

wherever you are…

proximal reading

We can change our parameters and our questions simply by reading more: more widely, more deeply, more eclectically, more comparatively. Browsing in addition to quantification; incessant rather than distant reading: the unsystematic nature of our discipline is actually its salvation (Trumpener, 2009)

degrees of separation

…and the random walk

One Two Three Four Lots… You are going to need a bigger research group

Degrees of Separation

intersecting lines

rhizomes slices granules temporality

applied digital humanities

what do we want to know? what can literature tell us about it? what are the limitations?

corpus text

…internally and self-referentially consistent ...defines research scope ...reader characteristics are distinguishable

science fiction as a text corpus

there is an interdisciplinary research relationship between science fiction and human culture (Menadue & Cheer, 2017)

science fiction magazines

bounded scope and unbounded content changes in recurring themes and ideas reflect social and cultural change (Menadue, 2017) advertising, letters and editorials: outward reading content (Scholes & Wulfman, 2010)

analysing the science fiction magazine

your research project here prepare corpus texts select corpus ask research question too much too little assess text

• utput

decide on degrees of separation just right explore texts boring classify findings exciting

theme content

style

interpret findings tell everyone who will listen

proximal reading

digital tools for non-specialists

Excel for statistics and cataloguing Google forms for surveys Nvivo or other CAQDAS wordcloud generators

summary

it’s (not so) complicated

literary corpus text is a good place to look for cultural insights computers count and sort much more quickly than humans, but humans are better at interpretation quantitative, empirical methods eliminate selection bias qualitative analysis discovers meaning Integrating both is a logical approach to text analysis

References

Ascari, M. (2014). The Dangers of Distant Reading: Reassessing Moretti's Approach to Literary Genres. Genre, 47(1), 21-53. doi:doi:10.1215/00166928- 2392357 Burrows, J. F. (1987). Computation into criticism: a study of Jane Austen's novels and an experiment in method. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fielding, N. G., and R. M. Lee. 2002. New patterns in the adoption and use of qualitative software. Field Methods 14 (2): 197–216. Gang, J. (2011). Behaviorism and the beginnings of close reading. ELH, 78(1), 1-25. Habjan, J. (2012). The Bestseller as the Black Box of Distant Reading: The Case of Sherlock Holmes. Primerjalna Knjizevnost, 35(1), 91. Menadue, C. B., & Cheer, K. D. (2017). Human culture and science fiction: a review of the literature, 1980-2016. SAGE Open, 7(3), 2158244017723690. doi:10.1177/2158244017723690 Menadue, C. B. (2017a). Trysts tropiques: the torrid jungles of science fiction. eTropic, 16(1), 125-140. doi:10.25120/etropic.16.1.2017.3570 Moretti, F. (2000). Conjectures on world literature. New Left Review 1(Jan-Feb), 54-68. Moretti, F. (2005). Graphs, maps, trees: abstract models for a literary history. New York;London;: Verso. Scholes, R., & Wulfman, C. (2010). Modernism in the Magazines: An Introduction: Yale University Press. Trumpener, K. (2009). Critical Response. I. Paratext and Genre System: A Response to Franco Moretti. Critical Inquiry, 36(1), 159-171. doi:10.1086/606126 Figures and Images Bollen J, Van de Sompel H, Hagberg A, Bettencourt L, Chute R, et al. (2009) Clickstream Data Yields High-Resolution Maps of Science [image]. PLoS ONE 4(3): e4803. Retrieved from: http://dragonfly.hypotheses.org/202/journal-pone-0004803-g005 Burton, Carl (2017). Slide backgrounds [gifs]. Retrieved from: http://carlburton.tumblr.com/ Network (n.d.)[gif]. Retrieved from: https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/497295983834882617/?lp=true Prevos, P. (2012). Kinship Boundaries in the Southern Dutch Village of Heugem in 1796 [kinship network image]. In Frontiers in Genealogy and Heraldry. Presented at the XXXth International Congress for Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences, Maastricht. Retrieved from: https://nl.prevos.net/heugem/kinship/